1. Field of Disclosure
The disclosure generally relates to the field of computer security, in particular to monitoring secured network communications.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to detect Internet fraud, it is often necessary to monitor content transmitted through communication channels. For example, parental control applications monitor online chat message exchanges to ensure that minors do not share sensitive private information such as phone numbers and home addresses with strangers online. To prevent data interception and tampering, computers establish secured communication channels using secure communication protocols such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL), and exchange data through the secured communication channels. It is difficult to monitor content transmitted through a secured communication channel because such content is encrypted using an unpublished key.
Some software vendors attempt to monitor secured communication channels of a web browser by trying to access the web browser's memory through browser plug-ins and supported interfaces. However, not all network communication applications support plug-ins, and the interfaces are application-specific and modified often. Thus, this approach is temporary and ad hoc (e.g. targeting a specific web browser of a particular version) and cannot monitor secured communication channels established by other applications.
Accordingly, there is a need for new techniques that can monitor secured communication channels.